It is not a very good photo of Chloe, because I was being shy about taking a photo of her.

It is not a bad photo, not in particular, but it does not capture her as we see her.

We love Chloe.

This is Akiva. I am not shy about taking photos of him.

He is not shy about hugging trees.

Do you see the look in his eye? He is looking at Chloe.

This is Iris. I am not shy about taking photos of her. 

She is also not shy about hugging trees.

Someday, before we move, I must get some lovely photos of Chloe.

I will have to be not so shy of asking.

Martin brings home large pieces of scrap paper from work. The paper comes in handy for all kinds of fun stuff. We use it on the floor for drawing, painting, gluing, play-doughing and generally getting messy. I’m not supposed to tell you this, because on the not-blank side there’s some moderately-incomprehensible top-secret pictures of things. We don’t spend much time looking at that side, tho. The blank side is much more interesting.

Quickly melting snow leaves large puddles in the lawn.

The children fill up cups,

carry them to the wheelbarrow,

then pour them in.

I saw the wagon at a garage sale, put the kids in, and said, “How much for the wagon?”

“Ten dollars,” said the woman.

As I paid, I heard another woman say to someone, “Are you done, then?”

I looked over. There was an old man standing next to her.

“Well,” he said, “I was thinking about the wagon.”

I could feel him watching as I pulled the kids out the garage, down the drive to the car.

I wish I’d bought some other things there, but I mostly only bought the wagon.

It was a good choice.

I still wonder what the old man was thinking as he looked at the wagon.

We have a toy with holes and gears.

Akiva has discovered that the gears fit perfectly into the floor vent.

When they are all in, the gears turn perfectly!

Then Akiva takes them all out and puts them back in the board with holes.

When he is done, he puts the game away.

Akiva plays.

He is wonderful at playing.

Sometimes toys roll under the shelves, & he has to look for them.

He makes one kind of toast—

and then another and another until he finds a proper sort of toast.

Then there is only waiting until it pops up.

After working in the kitchen, Akiva cleans up after himself.

He is quite meticulous in his cleaning.

Our house needs to be painted before we can sell it. It would be easier to paint if there weren’t so many kids around. So I took the kids and visited the Hack family in Connecticut. It was great!!! Actually, it was perfect. I mean, I don’t think anything went wrong. I’d tell you everything that went wrong, only I can’t think of anything other than the fact that I didn’t take any photos at all whatsoever of Iris & her best friend aside from this day when I took some photos of the kids all playing train tracks in the playroom. The playroom is really quite nice.

Joshua shows Akiva how the tracks go together.

Akiva mans the tunnel.

Joshua placed a stop sign at the end of it to make sure the trains do not go off the end of the track.

Iris looks for the perfect piece of track.

The end of the line.

How much track would it take to make a ramp all the way down the stairs?

Leigha makes a long train.

Roundabout the baby!

It snowed a lot.

Meanwhile, I stayed inside designing wearable mermaid tails for 13″ dolls.

Akiva’s favorite toy is the snow shovel.

It is cold again. We go to the farm.

It is very, very cold.

A baby goat peeks cautiously around the corner at the not-so-warming sunshine.

The goat makes Akiva nervous.